Abigail Smith
Strategic Organizations Emphasis
Project Summary:
Rebranding of the Instagram Profile:
For the first part of my project, I wanted to rebrand my Instagram account for my photography account. I have always had a hard time figuring out how to make my Instagram eye catching enough where I can draw in clients. I started out fixing my biography, profile picture and highlight bubbles. This is what it looked like before I started the project:
I tried to go along the same lines as my website with the neutral tones for my highlight bubbles. Then I did some research on other successful photography pages and what they had in common. Something I changed was my title from Abby Smith Photography to “Idaho Couples Photographer” in all caps. I did this because I’ve seen a lot of successful photo accounts do this, and it states my message clearly and directly to potential clients. I also did some research on what to put in a bio, and I made it very simple and straight to the point. Although I did not gain a lot more followers in the senior project time frame, my intention was to make my account more professional and appealing.
Figuring out my posts and reels order, I used an app called My Feed, which helps plan out posts and previews them to show you how they look on your profile. I kept struggling to make it all look uniform and clean like the profiles I’d researched. I tried doing every other picture a far away or artsy picture, and then the next picture would be a couple’s picture up close and I would alternate. I do think it looks better than it was from when I started, but I still have some improving to do. Next, for the reels, I had a lot of fun with this one! During the duration of the project, I did 7 posts and 6 reels and one of my reels did really good! I believe it was because of the music I used. I used an app called reel trends which just shows you what music is popular and the statistics for the month. Here is an example of what the trends on the app look like for a popular soundtrack:
When I used the app, I saw a big difference. Here is an example of when I used the reel trend app and found a good sound to use as background:
It was fun to watch because I got 16.2k views on this reel with 6,606 likes and it’s still growing. When I didn’t use the reel trend app, I would find sounds that I liked and thinking they would do well but I found that they wouldn’t do well. Here’s an example of when I didn’t use the app:
It wasn’t a terrible turn out, but defiantly a change from 16.2k views to 656 views. I think the reel trend app was a great asset to me and want to continue using it. Something I want to continue doing as well is improving my photography and the overall aesthetic of my feed.
You can find my instagram here:
https://instagram.com/abby.smithphotography?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Website:
When I went to make my website, I had a similar approach to my Instagram, where I looked up a few websites that I loved and tried to pin point what I loved about them, and what drew me to them. I looked up Sunbleached Swim, Dae Hair, Tana Willden, and Annie Eyring Photography. I loved the laid back, neutral tones SunBleached and Dae had, and I also loved the grainy feel that Tana Willden had. I had to figure out the color codes for the colors I liked and figuring out colors that go well together was harder than I thought because there were difference colors schemes on the websites and I liked them all! I looked at Annie Eyring’s Photo website just to get another idea for what to put on a photography website. Pulling from all these websites, I was able to create a mock-up of what I wanted it to look like pictured here:
I already had a website from my class last semester in Comm 310. I had to learn to code my own website using HTML and CSS using WordPress and the Divi Theme Builder. This class by itself was very challenging for my brain, but I feel like I learned so much, where I could apply these things to my senior project this semester. I loved the challenge of learning a new language of code, and I wanted to continue to push myself which is why I chose this for the main portion of my project. For my final project in my Comm 310 class, a lot of the Divi Theme Builder was locked so we couldn’t use it in order to focus on the code. Here is what my website looked like before I started to work on it:
The challenge I felt for a lot of my senior project was figuring out Divi again because it wasn’t locked anymore so it felt like an entire new program, because I was more comfortable with the program when parts of Divi were locked. Sometimes just using code was the easier thing to do. What really helped me succeed with my website was meeting with Brother Lybbert occasionally, where I would bring in questions and he would teach me how to work through them and direct me to different videos so that I could learn on my own. I also had to look up my old PDF’s and old pictures, documents, and videos for coding from my old class to redo my website. I also met with Brother Judkins every 2 weeks to check in and show the progress I’d make through the entire project. Something I found that was intimidating in the beginning was resizing my images so they weren’t too big, and could load faster. I struggled with this in my class last semester because my computer doesn’t work with Photoshop, which made me think I would struggle with it for my project as well. Brother Lybbert helped me find a free website where I could resize my images and it wasn’t hard at all. Most of my images were 2666px and I had to get them down to 800px.
Overall, I loved putting more effort and thought into my photo business. I’m extremely happy about how I went about this, and glad I chose to work on this. I learned so much about web design and Instagram, and I spent a total of 50 hours for this project. I am excited to carry on and use my website for my little business instead of it ending just because my Senior Project is finished. I really feel my website and Instagram will be a great asset to helping me find new clients to grow!
With this project I was so excited to show my friends and family for when I completed it. Here is a picture of showing my website to my friend after I finished!
You can find my website here:
abby-smithphotography.com
Time Log:
